Computer networks are becoming an increasingly important aspect of personal and professional life. Networks are used for a wide variety of services including audio, video, and data transfer. A host of specialized networks have been proposed and developed specifically to support each of these services. However, a single network solution has been developed to tackle all three services and replace existing telephone systems and specialized networks. This all-in-one solution is called Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network (“B-ISDN”). The underlying technology for B-ISDN is called asynchronous transfer mode (“ATM”). ATM networks are based on cell-switching technology, wherein each cell is 53 bytes long including a 5-byte header and a 48-byte payload.
As ATM networks are increasingly being relied upon to deliver voice, video, and data transmissions, maintaining the operational health of these networks is of increasing importance. As such, Operation and Management (“OAM”) protocols have been developed to maintain the operational health of a network and manage its resources. However, implementing OAM functionality over ATM networks can be difficult.
Each time a connection is established between two users of an ATM network, a virtual path must first be established and then a virtual circuit within the virtual path selected. During this setup period, a traffic contract is negotiated between the requesting user and a network operator. The traffic contract may define such quality of service (“QoS”) parameters as peak cell rate, sustained cell rate, minimum cell rate, cell variation delay tolerance, cell loss ratio, cell transfer delay, cell delay variation, and the like. Failure of the network to perform the negotiated terms of the traffic contract may lead to a breach of the traffic contract. As such, implementation of OAM functionality over an ATM network must not induce undue delay or consume needless amount of bandwidth so as to cause a breach of the traffic contract.